Amazon decides Kindle speech isn’t worth copyright fight

Stung by an outcry from the authors and publishers it needs as its allies in …

Although both iterations of Amazon's Kindle offer a fairly polished e-book experience, the company is clearly interested in experimenting with adding capabilities beyond the written word. The "experimental" menu brought up a list of half-baked programs that allow rudimentary access to audio and Web content. The only significant change to the experimental section in the Kindle 2 was the addition of a text-to-speech capability that allowed the Kindle to read content to its users in one of two synthesized voices. Following an extended outcry from some in the publishing business, however, Amazon has backed down and will allow publishers to retain control over whether to expose their texts to this capability.

Portions of the publishing industry, most notably the Authors Guild, got very nervous about the text-to-speech capabilities almost as soon as they were announced. Within a few days of the Kindle 2's introduction, the Guild released a statement in which it advised its members to hold off on licensing e-book rights until the situation was sorted out. That was followed up by an editorial in The New York Times, penned by its president, Roy Blount, entitled "The Kindle Swindle." The title tells you all you need to know about the group's opinion on the text-to-speech feature. To be sure, that opinion doesn't appear to be uniformly shared among actual authors; Neil Gaiman notably argued that getting involved in a legal spat over this issue would be counterproductive.

Nevertheless, it was clear that Amazon could have a fight on its hands. Although the legal issues regarding text-to-speech translations of a book's content are complex enough that we could spend two pages pondering them, the gist seems to be that Amazon would have a pretty strong case. Permanent performances of texts, such as audiobooks, fall under the copyright umbrella, but spontaneous, impermanent performances, like reading to kids or the screen readers used by the visually impaired, don't. Even the editorial by the Authors Guild's Blount seemed to recognize this; he focused his argument on the fact that the Kindle is a focused, book-centric device.

Amazon also seems to feel confident that it's in the clear, legally. Its statement announcing the changes starts off pretty unambiguously: "Kindle 2's experimental text-to-speech feature is legal: no copy is made, no derivative work is created, and no performance is being given." Of course, the rest of the statement explains why, for business reasons, it's caving anyway.

It certainly isn't because Amazon views the flat, undramatic performances rendered by the Kindle's computerized voices a threat to the audio book business. The company, after all, owns two audio book companies, including market-leading Audible.

Instead, this has to do with Amazon's plans to dominate the e-book market. Recent announcements suggest the Kindle is only a part of a larger effort, as Amazon promises to make its proprietary e-book format available on a variety of platforms in an effort to ensure that, should e-books take off, it grabs the lion's share of the market. It's hard to say too much about these plans until Amazon announces what other platforms it's targeting or how they're enabled, but the key is to have as much exclusive book content as the company can license.

In that sense, the text-to-speech is a disaster; it's not good enough to sell a significant volume of books, but it is problematic enough to scare away authors and publishers. Amazon recognizes this in stating, "we strongly believe many rightsholders will be more comfortable with the text-to-speech feature if they are in the driver's seat." As such, whoever has the rights to a text will now have the opportunity to determine whether that text is accessible to the text-to-speech capabilities.

Putting these rightsholders in the driver's seat when it comes to this ability will, Amazon hopes, allow it to stay in the driver's seat when it comes to selling their products.

Maybe they figure that the publishers will somehow be "shamed" into allowing text to speech, for the visually impaired. On the other hand, is the Kindle really the right hardware for the visually impaired? Let's just say I wouldn't be putting this particular gift under the tree for my blind friends.

So I guess ebooks are going to follow the same path music has: Start out timidly, with the content producers acting deathly afraid of their audience and locking things down as much as they can. Once it becomes more widespread, hopefully writers will see the same light music companies have and forget these dumb draconian licensing/DRM schemes.

Remember, content producers of the world, your content is already freely available to the market, and you throwing away money by not making it available legitimately...

OK, how does one determine who are members of the Authors Guild? I'm on their website and the only member area is for existing members; apparently the public doesn't have access to their member list.

I've already sent AG email indicating that we will never purchase another book, audio or otherwise, from any of their authors. Now I would like to back that up by contacting each author that is part of this guild and let them know what this is costing them.

OK, how does one determine who are members of the Authors Guild? I'm on their website and the only member area is for existing members; apparently the public doesn't have access to their member list.

I've already sent AG email indicating that we will never purchase another book, audio or otherwise, from any of their authors. Now I would like to back that up by contacting each author that is part of this guild and let them know what this is costing them.

I sent the following "feedback" to kindle2-feedback@amazon.com this morning.

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I am unhappy with the change to the speech-to-text feature allowing publishers to opt in or out. I bought your very high-priced Kindle 2 partially because I like listening to books when my eyes are tired.

This after-the-fact change is inappropriate and unwelcome. This is bait-and-switch selling. I should get a partial refund for this reduction in features.

My view of Amazon is negatively affected by this ill-considered change.

Just wondering if we will see an American with Disability Act lawsuit? Websites were sued for not making their interface compliant.

Others have noted, but frankly digital spoken word seems relatively harmless. I like audio books (always getting them on loan from the library) because a skilled reader can add to the experience through tone, accents, etc. A monotone digital voice would drive me crazy in a few minutes.

I have a Kindle 2; I spent the weekend playing around with it. The text-to-speech feature (which is no better than the text-to-speech feature that's been on Macintoshes since the 90s) is in no way a substitute for a professional reader. I might use it on newspapers while driving, but if I'm listening to a book, I'll pay someone to do it right.

I'm very sorry to see Amazon cave in to the laughable claims of the Author's Guild, but I understand why they took this step given what seems to be their long-term strategy.

First it has pretty much nothing to do with the Publishers it has to do with the Authors.

Second I can fully understand their reasoning and it makes complete sense. Let me try to explain as my wife has kind of seen stuff having to deal with the licensing with some of the stuff she has published (mostly poetry).

You write a book which strikes a publisher's fancy. They decide to license the rights to publish that book in a physical format in the form of a book. Generally licensing goes something like this:

$10,000 up front costs + .10-.25/copy sold after X number of copies (.10 is generally for a new author, .25 for a well known Author, though they have been known to fight those if it turns out to be a blockbuster like Robert Jordan did in demanding ~.75 after the first two parts of the Wheel of Time series sold so well).

Ok, now they also MAY decide to license an audio book version from the author, using the same basic method (so much up front, and generally much more /copy sold).

Here is where the Kindle 2 problems come in. If it can do Text2Speech well enough (and there are thoughts that in 1-2 generations of the software it just might be close enough, minus the "emotion") there is no reason anymore for publishers to license the audio rights from the author. Essentially instead of them paying say $20,000 for both rights for the Author, and so much per copy sold they can just pay $10,000 for the rights to sell it as an EBook since the Kindle 3/4/whatever can do the Audio book format anyways.

So this isn't about publishers wanting to screw the buyer, it isn't about you reading to your kids, it's about publishers being able to screw the Author and make a bunch of money (look at it this way is ebooks take off at $10 per, .25 goes to the author, a few bucks to Amazon and a ton of dough to the publisher who really did nothing but get it out there). I completely understand the Authors Guild reasoning and am glad they won this. I really would hate to see things go back to how they were prior to the 70s or so when Authors really were starving artists in many ways and had to work themselves to the bone just to eek out a living, with quite a few promising ones committing suicide because it was so difficult just to survive.

Originally posted by Mltdwn:This goes to show peoples misunderstanding of the whole problem.

And this goes to show yours.

Your entire post and argument are well-reasoned and detailed. It just fails to note that it's damn well up to the Authors (and their guild), to make sure they get proper compensation for their work from the publishers.

IF ever a Kindle was made that could replace Audio books (something I very much doubt), then it would be up to the authers to demand a higher payout and royalty rate, because their works were now available in two different formats.

It would make perfect sense to demand a separate royalty scheme for an eBook compared to an old-fashioned book, and that's exactly what contracts are for.

What this does is remove legitimate fair-use of content legally bought and paid for. What's next - I can't read a book aloud to my kids?

Mltdwn, I think the real issue is authors need to realize you cant piece meal the licensing like that anymore. Tech has / is going to make the "audio book" a thing of the past. If they dont like it, then they need to get extra money up front. So, instead of 10c a copy, get 20c and bundle the audio book in. Sure makes a whole lot more sense then some asinine DRM system. You cant fight the times, you need to change with them.

Mltdwn, I think the real issue is authors need to realize you cant piece meal the licensing like that anymore. Tech has / is going to make the "audio book" a thing of the past. If they dont like it, then they need to get extra money up front. So, instead of 10c a copy, get 20c and bundle the audio book in. Sure makes a whole lot more sense then some asinine DRM system. You cant fight the times, you need to change with them.

I understand completely; however, you can't exactly fight the publishing houses. It still costs so much money now to publish a book there is no way an author can say "I choose to starve rather than sell the rights to a publishing house". They can fight the publishers all they want but presently the publishers still have so much power that until ebooks really do take off and Amazon/other ebook vendors make it simple and easy for authors to get their product on to their marketplace by bypassing the publishers that is simply untenable.

I mean seriously, going by your logic, if you did do that and say told Random House or Roc when they make an offer for licensing that "hey I need extra money because the Kindle can do X so you will never license the audio book rights" they'd just laugh and pull back the offer as no other publishing house would offer anything more for the most part. The change needs to occur on the publishing side and the Authors are just trying to make sure they don't get left behind with the times. Like I said Amazon could easily step in and simply say to all authors "come to us, directly submit your work with little effort and you will get X% of all of the sales" and solve the whole problem, but they are not exactly doing that except in special cases (such as with Stephen King). Like I said the problem is the Authors need the publishers still presently, not vice-versa.

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What this does is remove legitimate fair-use of content legally bought and paid for. What's next - I can't read a book aloud to my kids?

You know very well this is nothing like that. This has to do with the Authors and the Publishers, the problem is how can Authors sue the publishers for simply not buying the rights to sell a product in a certain format? They can't, so they have to go after the people that enables the publishers to do so, presently it is their only option. Once ebooks become more common place however, and more people are savvy on getting them, and the ebook retailers allow easier methods for all Authors to submit their product to the marketplace outside of normal publication channels then perhaps discussion on "fighting the publishing houses" would be productive. But it requires a change on the retailers' part first.

@Mltdwn:I think you miss the point. If authors can't make enough selling books, they should consider another field. At least to the point where it potentially discriminates against handicap people. That or make audio books the exact same price as ebooks.

Here is where the Kindle 2 problems come in. If it can do Text2Speech well enough (and there are thoughts that in 1-2 generations of the software it just might be close enough, minus the "emotion") there is no reason anymore for publishers to license the audio rights from the author. Essentially instead of them paying say $20,000 for both rights for the Author, and so much per copy sold they can just pay $10,000 for the rights to sell it as an EBook since the Kindle 3/4/whatever can do the Audio book format anyways.

You can't stop the advances of technology, get with the times or risk becoming obsolete.

Amazon caved, and I'm ashamed that they did, they could have fight the good fight but decided to let Rights Holders keep fair use at ransom again (much like how Hollywood is trying to use Selective Output Control on the devices you payed good money for)

Here's the thing though, someone WILL brake Amazon's DRM, most probably someone in a country that has no such thing as DMCA, and someone else WILL develop a Text-To-Speech program similar or better than Amazon, and people will probably be able to encode that speech to MP3 and carry it on their PMPs. And you know what else? It will all be perfectly legal.

What comes after that is most probably Rights Holders trying to use their lobbyist to try and take away your fair use rights through policy, but that's a story for another time.

Originally posted by eric_of_earth:@Mltdwn:I think you miss the point. If authors can't make enough selling books, they should consider another field. At least to the point where it potentially discriminates against handicap people. That or make audio books the exact same price as ebooks.

How does it discriminate against handicapped people? MOST publishers have standing agreements with different handicapped associations to provide to them "free of charge" most of their books in a format they can use. Most provide free copies for braille readers, and in the case of houses such as Baen they provide all of their books in electronic format or audio book format for free for anyone who is blind, dyslexic, paralyzed, or are amputees so that already exists. They are not discriminating in any way. I also highly doubt that someone that is legally blind could reliably operate a Kindle so that doesn't even really apply.

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Amazon caved, and I'm ashamed that they did, they could have fight the good fight but decided to let Rights Holders keep fair use at ransom again (much like how Hollywood is trying to use Selective Output Control on the devices you payed good money for)

Or amazon could simply do the right thing, go directly to the authors and say "We will allow you to deal with us directly and will directly license the rights for the ebook from you rather than your publisher giving you a better share of profits at a lower cost to everyone involved".

Not to mention all those saying Authors should just demand more money... Yeah we've been saying for decades teachers, police officers and the like should be paid more and demand more money (they are unionized after all) and we see how well that works. It hasn't.

Or amazon could simply do the right thing, go directly to the authors and say "We will allow you to deal with us directly and will directly license the rights for the ebook from you rather than your publisher giving you a better share of profits at a lower cost to everyone involved".

Yes, they could do that, but that's not what we're discussing here, doing this and keeping Text to Speech are not mutually exclusive.

What we are discussing is fair use rights, advances of technology and rights holders trying to sue to keep the status quo.

Or do you agree that it's ok that rights holders should make a big fuzz each time a new technology threatens their livelihood?

At what point is this inequity the consumer's problem? The Author's guild seems to have enough clout to cause a big PR fuss and cause Amazon to cave, why can't they do the same thing against the publishing houses?

So the publishers threaten to pull out unless artificial restrictions are placed on the books? Screw them. If your audiobook isn't good enough to warrant paying for over the automated version, you don't deserve any money from it.

"The executive director of the 9,000-member guild isn't taking all or even most of the credit for Amazon's abrupt about-face on Friday...

He says while Authors Guild managers were "vocal" with their objections to the Kindle's speech technology, including publishing an op-ed piece in The New York Times, much more powerful entities were leaning on Amazon to make changes: large book publishers...

"Amazon realized the magnitude of the contractual problem," Aiken said Monday morning. "Many of the author's publishing contracts give publishers the right to publish e-books, but only without enhancing audio. A reasonable reading of those contracts shows that publishers didn't have the authority to sell e-books for use in a Kindle device with audio enhancement." "

So, what is Authors Guild? And why it actually exists? And who authorized them to make decisions on behalf of authors? Have all (or majority?) of authors actually endorsed their position? (sounds like some sort of forced union for authors?)I don't have Kindle and don't even plan on getting one, but these issues just look so stupid, just as one of posters before me said - here we go again the way of digital music, movies, etc..Maybe if authors don't want people reading their books, they should never have published them in the first place...why bother.

BTW - I'm not even interested to have a book red to me by some device, I actually enjoy reading the text more than listening.... But hearing complaints about such possibilities from the guys who actually don't create anything is just disgusting.

(look at it this way is ebooks take off at $10 per, .25 goes to the author, a few bucks to Amazon and a ton of dough to the publisher who really did nothing but get it out there

If ebooks take off, the publishers become unnecessary.

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(and there are thoughts that in 1-2 generations of the software it just might be close enough, minus the "emotion")

Anyone who thinks that is ignorant. Text to Speech is a much harder problem than simple pronunciation, even if we had a phonetic alphabet we'd still need to interpret prosody contextually, which is something even real humans have issues with doing in real time, let alone a machine with no semblance of the contextual info necessary for pragmatics.

Unfortunate. I was really "meh" about the whole Kindle thing, until I found out about this feature -- ironically in coverage of its apparent demise. I'm a bit of an audiobook-on-cd nut, and I'm constantly frustrated by the ridiculous expense involved in purchasing titles legally -- sometimes as much as $20 over the price of a hadback copy.

I won't say I would have bought one specifically for the feature, but I will say that I definitely wouldn't buy one without it being always available. That not only makes the product less desirable, but makes it an issue of principle (controlling the content I purchase).

Hystery, I mean history repeats itself. What authors, publishers and Amazon don't realize, like musicians, record companies and mp3 player makers before them, is that they are in the same boat: They want to sell to the consumer.

Surprise: The consumer is smarter than you think. Try to screw them over, and they will simply put their money elsewhere. Apple does not publish numbers, but it is obvious from popularity ratings that people stopped bying DRMed songs.

In the same way, text to speech is not death to the audiobook market (what a bogus idea). As others have pointed out, it's impossible to create a captivating reading of a text by a computer. It would demand so much additional information on stress, accent, type of voice etc., that producing it would cost as much as recording an actor.

But, if Amazon keeps crippling its device, the consumer starts to feel cheated and will simply stop buying Kindles. The real threat to the device are cheap Chinese knock-off readers that will crop up in the market within 3 years, and that can be loaded with pdfs and txt files without DRM hassle. And if consumers are pissed off enough to go look for free (as in beer) uncrippled text files of the books online, they will find them.

That authors, publishers and Amazon can't keep their infighting behind the scenes without making customers feel cheated is a clear sign that somebody is not into the business of generating sales here.

As someone who writes (and has come close to getting published), my allegiance lies first with the consumer, then with the author. If there is a time when the authors have to deal with a little upheaval in the industry when technology provides a great boon to the consumer, then so be it. Ultimately, we'll all be better off if we allow this to shake out naturally. Any roadblocks that the authors put in place to preserve the status quo will only postpone the inevitable, to the detriment of everyone else in order to keep them from having to adjust even a little bit.

The content industry holds themselves, and the rest of us, back with all of this crap.

I can't believe Amazon caved in to such bullshit antics and to such a small special interest group to boot. WTF Amazon???

Fuck DRM and the horse it rode in on. I'm so sick of IPR anymore - man, if I ever get into high public office, I'll make my career on dismantling the entire system as much as possible. Society simply does not benefit in any meaningful way from the current system but I digress...

Anyway, I guess those Kindeles I was considering getting for myself, wife and two kids next month can stay at Amazon now.

I'm not sure I understand how this is a fair use issue, as so many critics seem to be arguing. As far as I know, fair use doesn't include a right to have an automated device that converts a copyrighted work from one medium (text) to another (speech). Before the Kindle 2 was announced, no one complained that they were being deprived of fair use rights without such a program (and yes, speechifiers have existed on personal computers for decades, but 1) Usenet aside, no one generally has any complete, copyrighted books in digital form on their computers and 2) who the hell wants to listen to a robot recite a complete novel while sitting at their computer desk?).

I'm not automatically on the side of the author's guild either, but I just find all these lofty pronouncements about rights being trampled rather pretentious, if the "right" in question is neither codified in any existing law, nor has it been exercised in any widespread fashion before now.

Easy enough. Make sure Amazon clearly labels on each book whether the feature is enabled or disabled. If you are interested in the book, but TTS is disabled, leave a negative review telling the author and publisher that you are unwilling to support them restricting your rights, and that they just lost a sale.

Originally posted by faceless007:I'm not sure I understand how this is a fair use issue, as so many critics seem to be arguing. As far as I know, fair use doesn't include a right to have an automated device that converts a copyrighted work from one medium (text) to another (speech).

It's called format or space shifting, and is the same thing that makes it legal to convert CD's to MP3 files. If you don't think that applies, please show us which of the four points of fair use it violates. You'll notice that the Author's Guild has specifically chosen not to fight this fight on grounds of copyright for a reason. From the other Ars article:

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From article:under the standard established in the seminal Betamax case, the Kindle's out-loud feature would almost certainly be deemed to have "substantial noninfringing uses," leaving the company in the clear, and publishers with the unrealistic recourse of trying to sue individual owners who "perform" their books without permission.

Try learning about copyright law before commenting about it. It's freely available for reading.

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Before the Kindle 2 was announced, no one complained that they were being deprived of fair use rights without such a program (and yes, speechifiers have existed on personal computers for decades,

Do you often pop holes in your own arguments? Why would anyone complain about a missing right when they could freely exercise such rights?

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but 1) Usenet aside, no one generally has any complete, copyrighted books in digital form on their computers and 2) who the heck wants to listen to a robot recite a complete novel while sitting at their computer desk?).

Who says you have to sit at a desk? I have listened to many computer-spoken books while commuting to work and find it perfectly enjoyable. In fact the less "expressive" the voice, the better, because with a flat reading, my brain ends up interpreting (adding inflections, accents, etc.) the words just as if I were reading it on a page. I found more "realistic" voices harder to understand consistently.

Also Gutenberg makes sure there are plenty of non-copyrighted complete electronic versions of works available, but that doesn't really address your point.

Originally posted by Oblib__:It's called format or space shifting, and is the same thing that makes it legal to convert CD's to MP3 files.

Time-shifting would apply if we were talking about making an OCRed digital copy of a book--same medium, new time. The question of whether creating an audio recording is fair use or a derivative work is not so clear, as the article you link points out.

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If you don't think that applies, please show us which of the four points of fair use it violates.

How about 3 and 4? The text-to-speech feature can read an entire copyrighted work from beginning to end (3) and has the potential to harm the market value of the copyrighted audiobook version of the work (4).

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You'll notice that the Author's Guild has specifically chosen not to fight this fight on grounds of copyright for a reason. From the other Ars article:

From the same article, regarding the question of whether an audiobook is a "derivative work":"A "derivative work" is a work based upon one or more preexisting works, such as a translation, musical arrangement, dramatization, fictionalization, motion picture version, sound recording, art reproduction, abridgment, condensation, or any other form in which a work may be recast, transformed, or adapted."Also:"Even if we allow the ephemeral computer reading of an e-book to count as a "derivative work," private use of text-to-speech software likely counts as a "fair use"—although strictly speaking, the copyright statute creates a very narrow safe harbor immunizing such technology only when used "exclusively" for the benefit of the sight-impaired."

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Why would anyone complain about a missing right when they could freely exercise such rights?

Because until now virtually no one did exercise them. If I'm wrong, please show me data that any significant number of consumers in the past downloaded legal e-book versions of copyrighted books and then used speechifying software to read it to them. Since there have been myriad proprietary e-book formats before the Kindle, many of which do not allow speechifying, this restriction is not new to e-book consumers.

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but 1) Usenet aside, no one generally has any complete, copyrighted books in digital form on their computers and 2) who the heck wants to listen to a robot recite a complete novel while sitting at their computer desk?).

Who says you have to sit at a desk? I have listened to many computer-spoken books while commuting to work and find it perfectly enjoyable. In fact the less "expressive" the voice, the better, because with a flat reading, my brain ends up interpreting (adding inflections, accents, etc.) the words just as if I were reading it on a page. I found more "realistic" voices harder to understand consistently.[/quote]Good for you, but I submit you are a rare case. If not your computer (laptop?), what device did you use to speechify books in the car?

Originally posted by mkill:Hystery, I mean history repeats itself. What authors, publishers and Amazon don't realize, like musicians, record companies and mp3 player makers before them, is that they are in the same boat: They want to sell to the consumer.

Surprise: The consumer is smarter than you think. Try to screw them over, and they will simply put their money elsewhere. Apple does not publish numbers, but it is obvious from popularity ratings that people stopped bying DRMed songs.

In the same way, text to speech is not death to the audiobook market (what a bogus idea). As others have pointed out, it's impossible to create a captivating reading of a text by a computer. It would demand so much additional information on stress, accent, type of voice etc., that producing it would cost as much as recording an actor.

But, if Amazon keeps crippling its device, the consumer starts to feel cheated and will simply stop buying Kindles. The real threat to the device are cheap Chinese knock-off readers that will crop up in the market within 3 years, and that can be loaded with pdfs and txt files without DRM hassle. And if consumers are pissed off enough to go look for free (as in beer) uncrippled text files of the books online, they will find them.

That authors, publishers and Amazon can't keep their infighting behind the scenes without making customers feel cheated is a clear sign that somebody is not into the business of generating sales here.

Originally posted by Oblib__:It's called format or space shifting, and is the same thing that makes it legal to convert CD's to MP3 files.

Time-shifting would apply if we were talking about making an OCRed digital copy of a book--same medium, new time. The question of whether creating an audio recording is fair use or a derivative work is not so clear, as the article you link points out.

I don't see how it matters whether the copyright violation is violating the reproduction right or the derivative works right. Either way, the violation can be covered by fair use.

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If you don't think that applies, please show us which of the four points of fair use it violates.

How about 3 and 4? The text-to-speech feature can read an entire copyrighted work from beginning to end (3) and has the potential to harm the market value of the copyrighted audiobook version of the work (4).

Bottom line here is that it hasn't been tested in court, and no one can say for sure until it has. Given the personal use nature and the precedent of time-shifting in Betamax (which also reproduces the entire work, and reduces the market value of VHS movies), I'm pretty sure that computer-generated audiobooks would be fair use, provided they stay personal.

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Also:"Even if we allow the ephemeral computer reading of an e-book to count as a "derivative work," private use of text-to-speech software likely counts as a "fair use"—although strictly speaking, the copyright statute creates a very narrow safe harbor immunizing such technology only when used "exclusively" for the benefit of the sight-impaired."

Again, the only question here is whether the use is infringing or fair, and that clause is a specific limitation on copyright (§ 110 (8) to be specific), and has nothing to do with fair use. I'm not sure why Julian mentioned it in his article. Fair use can still apply even if it's not for blind people.

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Why would anyone complain about a missing right when they could freely exercise such rights?

Because until now virtually no one did exercise them. If I'm wrong, please show me data that any significant number of consumers in the past downloaded legal e-book versions of copyrighted books and then used speechifying software to read it to them. Since there have been myriad proprietary e-book formats before the Kindle, many of which do not allow speechifying, this restriction is not new to e-book consumers.

And you'll notice how well those proprietary formats have done. The Kindle has a chance to take e-books mainstream, and it is a shame that Amazon is caving like this. I personally will not support a format that restricts my rights in a way I notice. As the music industry learned, this kind of restriction is a fruitless, expensive endeavor.

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Good for you, but I submit you are a rare case. If not your computer (laptop?), what device did you use to speechify books in the car?

I created a Speex file on my PC for use on my portable music player. This involved several reproductions and the creation of a derivative work, all of which are infringing actions defensible by fair use.